


Necks in Nooses

by linndechir



Category: The Hateful Eight (2015)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Hand & Finger Kink, M/M, Period-Typical Racism, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-10 09:24:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11688741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: Warren laughed at him and said, “You ain't never done anything in your miserable life for a good cause, Johnny Reb."And Chris might have been in a bit of a brooding mood, pondering the duality of good and evil and all that, but he still wasn't going to let that sort of thing go unanswered.





	Necks in Nooses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/gifts).



“You know how I know how to do that?”

“Do what, Chris Mannix? Run your mouth all day long?”

“Tie a noose like that.”

Warren gave him a long, calculating look. That look that said there was no fooling him, because there wasn't. Marquis Warren was one crafty son of a bitch if Chris had ever met one, and he'd met a whole lot of crafty sons of bitches in his life. Where he was from, that place bred crafty sons of bitches. They all liked to talk about honour and respectability, and they believed in it, too, but deep down they were crafty fuckers. And all differences notwithstanding, Warren had been born and raised in the same place as Chris.

“Yeah, I know how you know how to do that,” Warren said finally. Not because he'd had to think about it, Chris figured – not the way he looked at Chris every time he saw him do it, like he admired the handiwork and still considered killing him for it, same way really Chris sometimes looked at Warren when he seemed just a bit too gleeful about shooting white men – but because he'd been deliberating what else to _say_ to it. Warren wasn't just crafty, he was also fairly well read. Meaning he knew more than a few words to tell Chris exactly what he thought of him.

“War's hell, huh, Major?” Chris said and almost laughed. “You know all about that. Doing things that ain't quite right for a good cause.”

This time Warren chuckled, almost choking on the beans he'd been eating.

“You ain't never done anything in your miserable life for a good cause, Johnny Reb,” he said. 

And Chris might have been in a bit of a brooding mood, pondering the duality of good and evil and all that, but he still wasn't going to let that sort of thing go unanswered.

“Oh, you telling me now you don't consider saving _your_ miserable life a good cause, Major? Because I distinctly remember doing that. Twice.” He felt a grin split his face at the same time as Warren's frown deepened. They had to look like some ridiculous fucking roadside show sometimes, Chris thought – black and white, blue coat and grey, and when one of them smiled the other one frowned, like they only had one smile to share between them. Sometimes, that was. When they didn't make each other laugh like they didn't have at least two dozen reasons to slit each other's throat.

“I don't think you or your daddy would consider that a good cause,” Warren replied, looking a bit miffed. “But I believe you were trying to make a point.”

Chris didn't really feel much like making that point anymore, but he'd been thinking on and off about it for weeks now. Unlike John Ruth, apparently, Chris had in fact conversed with other black motherfuckers than Major Marquis Warren in his life, courtesy of growing up in a place that had a whole lot of black motherfuckers, although none of them had been anything like Major Marquis. And Chris had been in a war, he'd already known that if you almost bleed to death with some other fucker bleeding to death, it creates a certain bond. Doesn't matter if you'd gladly murder that other fucker yourself on any other day of the week.

“Point is, you may not think you ever did anything wrong, burning dozens of innocent rookies to death, but I'm man enough to admit that I may have done some things I ain't proud of. Things that needed doing, before you get all smug, Major, but that don't mean I liked doing all of them.”

It came out like some kind of confession, as if he had to confess anything at all to this murdering bastard he was still travelling with for reasons he didn't even understand himself (something about how they were both still on the mend and not as fast as they usually were and two guns were better than one and somehow they'd talked each other into thinking this was a good idea, even though Chris had Warren's gun in his face every other day and he sometimes really wished he could gag Warren and get away with it). But it felt weird every time, looping a noose around a white man's neck, and it made him think about nooses around black men's necks, black women's, too, and yeah, maybe there'd been a few more nooses than had been strictly necessary. Maybe. A few.

Sometimes when Warren was staring at him like that, like he had any right to judge Chris, it reminded him of the way his daddy had used to look at him when Chris had been acting up, and that was the most fucked up part of it all. Warren reminding him of his daddy, making him question the shit his daddy had told him to do. Chris had always managed to keep his mouth shut when he had to – contrary to common assumptions – but some shit, well, some shit was a lot easier to do than to think about after.

Or maybe he was just being maudlin because he'd almost bled to death in a shithole in the middle of nowhere, and no man should survive a war only to croak it in a goddamn haberdashery. That just didn't seem right, in the grand scheme of things. 

Warren was still looking at him like he thought Chris was bullshitting him.

“Don't think none of that matters any to the people you strung up, white boy,” he said.

“No, I suppose it don't.” Chris shrugged. He stopped fiddling with the length of rope he'd been holding in his hands, then shrugged. “Don't suppose it'd help any of those boys you burned if you started feeling bad about it either.”

Warren snorted and shovelled the rest of his beans into his mouth.

“No chance of that.”

“Yeah, I didn't think so. You ain't got no conscience, Major. No moral integrity.”

And Warren finally laughed about that, laughed when Chris had really expected him to start laughing much earlier than that. He leant forward and cuffed Chris over the head like a bratty child, and completely ignored Chris's indignant yelp.

“I might feel a little bad if I had to shoot you, if that makes you feel any better.” Warren was still laughing. “I don't know why, considering you're a murderous piece of rebel trash, but still.”

“'cos I saved your life,” Chris pointed out and glared at him, but his heart wasn't quite in it. He poured himself some coffee, filled Warren's cup again too without even thinking about it. That was just common courtesy, and his momma had raised him to be polite. Ain't no reason to be rude just 'cos you're poor, she'd always said, and looking back they hadn't exactly been poor back then, compared to how miserable things had been since the war, but poorer than a lot of other people. 

“You got a lot more lives to save if you want to make up for all your past sins.” Warren was still grinning, still not taking him or any of this seriously. Chris cocked his head to the side.

“Now I know for a fact that the only life you care one bit about is your own, Major.” He grinned right back at him, saw Warren's smile dim a little. “So by that logic, I have fully atoned for any and all past sins you think I may have committed. Twice.”

Warren took a sip from his coffee, hiding most of his face behind the cup, but he didn't bother to argue that particular point. When he put the cup down, he went back to giving Chris that look.

“Then what are you brooding about, if your conscience is as lily-white as your ass?” 

“I ain't brooding, I'm thinking,” Chris said even though he knew it was bullshit. He was brooding. Not even because he felt all that guilty about anything he'd done in his life, if he was honest. He hadn't lied about having done things he wasn't proud of – before the war, and during, and afterwards, first because his daddy had told him to and then later because he'd needed the money and a man will do a whole lot of things he won't be proud of if he needs to eat. He wasn't sure he really felt _bad_ for any of them, though. He'd always had good reasons for the things he'd done. That's all any man could ever have, right? Good reasons. Obey your father. Uphold the order of things. Defend your rights. Shoot the murderous bitch who would have let you drink poisoned coffee. Bandage the wounds of the man who'd helped you hang that murderous bitch, even if that man deserved a noose around his neck as much as any of their bounties. More, if half the things he'd told General Smithers were true.

The way Chris saw it, if you had good reasons, you didn't need to feel bad even about the bad things you'd done. But even shit you didn't feel bad about could keep you up at night. The war sure as hell did, though less with every passing year, and he'd fight it again without a moment's hesitation. That goddamn night at Minnie's Haberdashery did, too. Kept him awake at night and brooding about the necessity of necks in nooses by day. It wasn't any way to live.

“You ever have trouble sleeping?” he asked, and this time Warren rolled his eyes at him.

“Yeah, because you never shut up.” But he kept watching Chris, with that crafty, cunning look in his eyes, like he was wondering if Chris had noticed that Warren tossed and turned in his sleep sometimes, too. And Chris had meant it, that Warren didn't have a shred of a conscience in him, but you don't need to feel remorse over burning dozens of men alive to be kept awake by the memory of some bloodthirsty fucker almost shooting your dick off while trying to save his bloodthirsty bitch of a sister.

“Come over here, Chris Mannix,” Warren said when Chris did actually shut up long enough for the silence to stretch out between them, nothing but the crackling of the camp fire and the occasional snort or rustle from their horses. A different kind of quiet than in the snow, and Chris was almost more grateful for that than for the lack of cold.

He scooted over on the log they were sitting on, closer to Warren, the rope still in his hands. It didn't stay there – Warren took it from his fingers, his own hands bare for once, the white cavalry gloves discarded before they'd started eating. 

“You ever had a noose around your neck?” Warren asked him, like that was any kind of a normal question to ask.

“Unlike you, most people who meet me don't actually want to kill me, Major,” Chris said. He was watching Warren's hands, watched them roll up the rope neatly. Warren was good with his hands – with a gun, with a knife, with the horses. Not so much with making food, but Chris suspected that was because he enjoyed making Chris cook for him.

They weren't exactly _good_ at any of the things they did when they touched Chris, at night, under blankets shared against the cold, strong and rough and often deliberately cruel. Chris didn't mind. Warren touching him was odd enough as it was. If he'd ever started being tender about it, Chris wouldn't be sure what to make of that at all.

“Now that I find hard to believe.” Warren flexed his fingers like he knew Chris was watching, which he probably did because Warren was observant on top of being cunning, and, well, Chris was the first to admit that being subtle was not his greatest quality. He still tried to keep the weird stab of disappointment he felt when Warren put down the rope off his face, and judging by that broad, cheerful grin on Warren's face, he'd failed.

“You'd be surprised,” Chris said to say something, and then he didn't say anything at all when Warren put his right hand on Chris's throat. No hesitation in that either, his fingers fitting as snugly around Chris's throat as a noose, the callouses on them rough enough to remind Chris just a little bit of a hemp rope. His grip was so tight that Chris felt his throat move against Warren's fingers when he swallowed. Warren's hands were maybe not _good_ at any of this, and certainly not gentle, but always so firm that it was hard to think about anything else while they touched him. Hard to think about Minnie's or the war or about the burn of bullets in his flesh or the slickness of blood on his hands. Warren rubbed his thumb over Chris's pulse point, hard enough that Chris wouldn't have been surprised to find a bruise there in the morning.

“You know, you don't need to keep yapping at me until my ears are ringing to get me to shut you up, Chris Mannix,” he said with that grin that would have raised Chris's hackles if he had any sense. He felt like he should have said something, but Warren's hand on his throat made it easy to be quiet for once, to focus on nothing but that firm grip and the crackle of the fire. 

He didn't need Warren to tell him what to do – and not only because Warren had taken the greatest pleasure in telling him exactly what to do the first times they'd done this, whether he just enjoyed ordering Chris around or whether he found the way it made Chris squirm too funny to pass up on. But now all Chris needed was a light push against his throat before he slid down to the ground, shifting around awkwardly until he knelt between Warren's legs, his arms bumping against those polished back cavalry boots. He leant his cheek against Warren's thigh and closed his eyes – it would have been easier if Warren put a gun in his face for this, if he let Chris pretend that he had no choice but to obey, but that was a rare kindness.

Warren's hand only let go of his throat to move to the back of his neck instead, gripping him like an unruly dog when he pulled him closer. Chris allowed himself to be dragged along until his face was pressed against Warren's crotch. He was too tired to make Warren make him do it, and too impatient to risk Warren simply shrugging it off and going to sleep.

“Go on then, white boy, unless you'd rather go back to brooding,” Warren said. He was grinning when Chris glared up at him, and didn't stop when Chris's hands busied themselves with the fastenings of his breeches.

“You're making it sound like you're doing me a favour here, Major,” Chris grumbled. He wasn't doing any of this because he enjoyed it, precisely, it was a lot more complicated than that. Tit for tat and all that, and if the Major never returned the favour in the same manner, that was just because he was an ungrateful bastard, which said more about him than it did about Chris. Not that Chris really wanted those teeth anywhere near his dick. Just because there were a few things he'd grown to trust Major Marquis with didn't mean he'd suddenly gone stupid.

It was too dark for Chris to see the scars on Warren's upper thigh and his balls once he'd pulled his breeches down, but he knew exactly where they were. Could have found them drunk and blindfolded. He ran his fingertips over them, felt Warren's muscles jump under his fingers.

“Damn ungrateful is what you are,” Chris said, his voice a little muffled even to his own ears. “And I stitched you up so nicely, too. Neat as a seamstress.” He ran his thumb along the scar up Warren's thigh to his balls, and like every time he winced a little in sympathy when he felt the knotted tissue where the skin ought to be soft and smooth.

“I'm pretty sure I thanked you for that at some point,” Warren said. His hand was still on the back of Chris's head, moved up into his hair and then grabbed it as firmly as he'd held his throat before.

“I'm pretty sure you didn't, Major. 'cos I would remember if I'd ever heard the words 'thank you' leave your mouth.” Chris wasn't looking up at him, but he could just imagine the amused look on Warren's face. “It wasn't easy either, you know? It's hard enough to stitch up a white man in the dark, but you –“

“You wanna be real careful now about the next words that leave _your_ mouth, Chris Mannix,” Warren said, but his tone wasn't half as stern as it would have been a few months ago. Chris had got pretty damn good at telling the difference between when Warren was actually pissed off and when he was just pretending to be because he enjoyed snapping at Chris. Just like Warren had probably figured out the difference between Chris actually having something to say and running his mouth just to irritate him.

“I'm just saying, sir, I put some real effort into these stitches here, and I was bleeding all over the place myself. Don't think most other men would have bothered.” Chris ducked his head and nosed at those very stitches, and was rewarded with a slow, firm squeeze at the back of his neck.

“Most other men would have the good sense not to talk about the time I almost got my nuts shot off when they should be sucking my dick.”

“Oh, am I ruining the mood?” Chris looked up with a grin just in time to catch the amusement in Warren's eyes. “Want me to light some candles maybe? Read you some poetry?”

Chris didn't stop laughing when Warren cuffed him over the head again, only quieted down because Warren shoved his thumb between Chris's teeth next to force his mouth open. He kept it right there when he pushed his dick into Chris's mouth, too, deep enough to make him gag on it, as if he had to do that to make Chris behave. Unlike some people he knew, Chris could be trusted to keep his teeth off a man's most sensitive parts. 

He closed his eyes even though experience had taught him that it didn't make this any less weird, any less something he knew he shouldn't be doing and didn't know why he did anyway. It should have made him want to pull his gun and shoot Warren's balls off properly for assuming Chris would just open his mouth and try his damnedest to relax his throat and not choke on that same cock that Warren had made other men choke on before, other white men, who'd at least had had the good sense to do this only with a muzzle pressed to their head. It shouldn't have made Chris hard, it shouldn't have made his chest tight when Warren stroked his head, it shouldn't have made him wonder if he was doing a good job. But it did, and it meant that he didn't think about all the other things that were running wild in his head all day long, and if nothing else he was grateful for that.

At the end of it he swallowed not only because Warren's hand in his hair wouldn't have let him move if he'd tried to, but also because it would have been damn rude not to, and Chris liked to make a point of being polite in the face of Warren's complete lack of manners. A man had to have some standards, even on his knees with a black cock in his mouth.

When he pulled off and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up, there was that funny look on Warren's face he always got afterwards, like he didn't really know why the fuck they were here and what the fuck they were doing any more than Chris did, and considering how much of a know-it-all Major Marquis Warren usually was, that was a small consolation at least.

“Why, thank you, Chris, how very kind of you,” Chris said because he knew Warren wasn't going to say it. Warren laughed at him, but it sounded breathless and a little distracted. He was still touching Chris's head, stroking his hair like that was something they did, and only pulled back his hand when Chris leant into his touch. Maybe he too remembered that it'd only make it weird – weirder – if they'd ever start being nice about this.

“I was going to say that you're getting pretty good at this, but now you mucked it up,” Warren said and tucked himself back in, hiding the scars and the neat stitches that Chris had learnt how to do from his daddy just like his daddy had taught him how to tie a noose, and how to shoot a gun, and what to think of men like Major Marquis. Chris didn't want to think that his daddy had been wrong about any of that, but there had been some unusual circumstances, and Chris had some damn good reasons to do what he'd done and was still doing, and his daddy wasn't here anymore to tell him not to.

Warren was watching him again like he knew what Chris was thinking, but maybe getting his dick sucked had appeased him enough for now that he kept that vicious mouth of his shut, or maybe he was tired because it was late, or maybe he didn't like thinking about whatever this was any more than Chris did.

Not much later they were curled up in their bedrolls, together because the nights still got chilly and they'd both been cold often enough in their lives not to have any false pride about manly freezing to death. Chris was still hard and having Warren pressed against his back with his breath hot on his neck wasn't helping that any. What with them travelling together and sleeping like this more often than not and doing a whole lot more than just sleeping almost every other night, Chris didn't really have a lot of shame left about doing this with the Major nearby, but it still felt unfair that Warren wasn't moving a finger when Chris wrapped his fingers around his own cock under the blankets.

“You could at least give me a hand with that,” he said. “If you still refuse to say thank you for anything.”

Warren's laughter was a warm puff against his ear, but it wasn't the malicious kind. He still only put his hand on Chris's hand rather than on his cock, making him tighten his grip. Warren had enough strength in his hand to make it almost hurt, a strength that made Chris a little dizzy when he thought about those same fingers wrapped around the Major's pistols, fast and so goddamn steady. Chris was a good shot, always had been, but Major Marquis was a great one. He must have bucked into both their hands because Warren laughed at him again and asked, “Do I want to know what exactly you're thinking about that's got you so excited?”

“I think you'd love to know, actually, sir,” Chris said and didn't tell him, and Warren clearly didn't want to indulge him by asking. 

He didn't have to do much himself, with Warren's hand guiding his own, his grip rough and firm so Chris could keep fucking into his own hand, thinking about guns and nooses and money they'd made together and not about how the fuck they'd both ended up here, scarred and with a lot of bloody memories but somehow not really wanting to kill each other all that much anymore. Chris tried to stay quiet when he came, and failed like he did every time even though he turned his head and buried it against Warren's shoulder behind him, and all that got him was that he could feel Warren's quiet chuckle in his chest.

“You know, we don't really have to keep hanging our bounties every chance we get,” Chris said a little while later, when they'd cleaned up and curled up comfortably and Warren was breathing so quietly behind him that he might have fallen asleep already. If he'd had, though, he would have kicked Chris for waking him instead of just shifting a little behind him.

“Of course we don't,” Warren said. His right hand had been resting on Chris's chest, but it moved up to his throat now, grasping it as snugly as he had earlier that night, his thumb rubbing at his skin again as if he wanted to bruise him after all. “But I like watching you hang white men, Chris Mannix. Warms the cockles of my black heart.”

Warren laughed against the back of Chris's neck like that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard himself say, and kept his hand right where it was. It should have felt like a threat, but then he'd had dozens of chances to shoot Chris in the back or slit his throat in his sleep or shove him off a cliff and he never had, so Chris felt confident that he wasn't going to get choked to death either. 

“You're a twisted bastard, Major,” he said cheerfully and closed his eyes. And maybe it said a few things about Chris that the hand of that twisted bastard on his throat didn't bother him one bit, but since he didn't have any trouble falling asleep that night, he didn't have to think too much about any of them.


End file.
